Because February is recognized as Black History Month, I thought I would provide some information which is not generally available. Most of the information provided in schools is politically correct trash.
The selection below is from the FreeTennessee.org website, but does not include a selection of Tennessee Supreme Court decisions which accompany the full article.
SLAVERY IN TENNESSEE
information presented to the
Tennessee House State & Local Government Committee
April 2009.
by Rev. David O. Jones
The language of HJR 7, sponsored by Rep. Brenda Gilmore, in which the Tennessee Legislature is to express a “solemn apology” (or “profound regret”), is both inflammatory and expresses a biased view of Southern history.
Paragraph three (3) states that “Africans forced into slavery were brutalized, humiliated, and dehumanized.” While domestic slavery was and is a humiliating situation which very few would ever want to revive, the laws of Tennessee protected them from being “brutalized” and “dehumanized.” Tennessee law required slave-owners to feed, clothe, house, and provide medical attention to their slaves. The decisions of the Tennessee Supreme Court in upholding the conviction of men who violated those laws is evidence that those laws were taken seriously. (9 Tenn 156-William Fields v. State of Tennessee. Nashville, January 1829; 29 Tenn 268-Lunsford and Davie v. Baynham, Nashville, December, 1849; 30 Tenn 171-Wherley v. The State. Nashville, December, 1850; and many others.)
Later, in paragraph six (6), it is stated, “the system of slavery, having been sanctioned and perpetuated through the laws of Tennessee and the United States, ranks as the most horrendous depredation of human rights in our nation’s history.” I would counter that the forced removal of the Cherokee known as “The Trail of Tears” in which 4,000 of 15,000 Cherokee died takes on all comers as “the most horrendous depredation of human rights in our nation’s history.”
Paragraph seven (7) states, “the Civil War, which was fought over the slavery issue.” Renowned historians do not agree on the cause of that war, therefore the statement cannot be used as a basis in fact for any argument.
A final objection from a specifically Biblical point of view. Paragraph eleven (11) asks government to repent. Government can’t repent, only individual souls can repent.
Positive argument for Tennessee:
In 1860, out of a total white population of 8 million people, only 385,000 were slaveholders (or 4.8%). And according to the 1830 census, more than ten thousand slaves were owned by free-Blacks in the states of South Carolina, Louisiana, Virginia, and Maryland.
Fact #1. Yankees controlled slavery. The center for the slave trade was Newport, Rhode Island. In 1850, the port boasted a fleet of 170 slave ships each of which could carry 60 to 150 slaves across the Atlantic. They carried approximately 20,000 slaves per year.
FACT #2. The earliest activists in abolishing slavery were Southerners. The first paper published exclusively in the interest of freeing slaves was “The Emancipator” published in 1820, in Jonesboro, Tennessee. By 1826, there were 143 emancipation societies in the United States and 103 of those were in the South. In 1817, the American Colonization Society was founded by slave-holders from Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland to provide an opportunity for Africans to return to their native soil.
From Solitude,
David O Jones
